It’s another ‘through the ages’ ad.

Here’s the new VW Polo ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeKuFs0KxO8

I’ve been watching a lot of the Leveson enquiry, so I feel as if I ought to lean over that desk like Robert Jay QC, smile sweetly, and ask the following questions:

‘Were you aware that ads depicting someone’s life through the ages have become somewhat prevalent in recent years?’

‘Mm, and the cosily idealised middle-class warmth… Was that a tone of voice you felt that we really hadn’t seen enough of lately?’

‘And did it occur to you at any time that you could finish this ad off with any one of 473 different logos, and still have it work perfectly well?’

‘I put it to you that although the ad is beautifully crafted and firmly effective, both its tone and content could be accused of being somewhat derivative. I would further contend that its attempt to get the viewer to blub gently into his or her PG Tips is a little transparent.’

‘Don’t you think that something like this would have had a better chance of being different, memorable and, ironically, moving?’

Rod McLeod, head of marketing at Volkswagen, said: “As well as reinforcing all of the ‘small but tough’ qualities that people love about the Polo, we thought it was important to tell a story which drew people in emotionally and which viewers could connect with.”

All the small but tough qualities? You mean smallness and toughness? And where was the smallness reinforced? Maybe that reinforcement was very, very small, doubly reinforcing the smallness that people love so much.

And Rod thought it was important to tell a story which viewers could connect with. Not a story that viewers couldn’t connect with? Come on… stories that people can’t connect with are fucking great. Here’s one: A man went to the treehouse to suddenly jam sandwich a cat. Then ker-pow, ker-pow lemon ostrich chick dead of night banjo.

I think Rod is a genius.